


La Cité Perdue (The Lost City)

by Renee_Lytle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Cute, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29456430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renee_Lytle/pseuds/Renee_Lytle
Summary: Eileen proposes an international case with the hopes that they'll get done early so she and Sam can have a proper honeymoon on the Southern coast of France. An entire village has disappeared, including Eileen's friend's sister, and the locals have no memory of it.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy & Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 7
Collections: Their Love Was Real: a Destiel & Saileen Fanworks Challenge





	1. An International Case

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the #TheirLoveWasReal Challenge day one "Discovery" ... I'll confess this one doesn't have a ton of discovery in it YET, but I'm going to add on to it and incorporate some of the other prompts along the way. 
> 
> We're raising money and awareness for the Southern Poverty Law Center so be sure to check out our donation drive here: splc.donordrive.com/campaign/theirlovewasreal
> 
> Also, these are only VERY lightly edited. Apologies for any awkward sentences or errors.
> 
> P.S. I'm not hard of hearing so if there's something incorrect or offensive here, please let me know.

"An entire town?" Sam had that incredulous look on his face. 

He always started with that look despite always wanting to know more. The fastest time Eileen ever got him to agree to go on a case with her was thirty seconds. 

Eileen pouted now because she thought "Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges has completely vanished without a trace" would've done it right away. She was salty enough to ask him, with annoyed hands, to **_please sign_ **.

She'd left a coffee with a new hunter friend, who'd told her about the case, early just to tell Sam and Dean. They'd never worked a case outside of the states before, and Eileen had never been to Southern France. 

Sam spelled out the name ' _Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges_ ' with a questioning inflection. 

She nodded vigorously and gave him her biggest smile. He blushed and looked down, which set off serious butterflies in her stomach. Eileen sat down on the metal bench seat next to him and lifted his face up. 

"We deserve a proper honeymoon," she said.

 **_This is proper?_ ** He signed with a laugh.

"Dean and Castiel went to La Paz for two weeks," she emphasized by also signing just how long they'd gotten away.

 **_Right!_ ** Sam slammed his hands together with the index fingers extended. **_And I'm pretty sure all they did was get drunk on the beach. No mysterious disappearing towns or ghosts. The only women in white were the waitresses in bikinis._ **

"We'd figure it out in no time! Come on, Sam, I've heard the southern coast of France has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Don't you want to spend time on a beach with me?"

He nodded, but his hands and mouth were still except for the crooked smile he gave her. One of his eyebrows shot up when she said, "I could wear a white bikini."

Then Sam's looked went from devilish to exasperated, and she knew exactly who he was looking at behind her. She turned in time to see Dean strolling out of the Burger Barn with a tray full of food. "Bikinis?" he asked with emphasis so she could read his lips.

"Is that all he said?" Eileen asked Sam.

He grimaced and reached for his grilled chicken sandwich, shoving about half of it in his mouth. A little bit of mayonnaise from the sandwich fell onto his jeans, and he made himself busy trying to clean it off. Eileen rolled her eyes and then looked to Dean, who sat on the other side of the candy-colored metal picnic table.

 **_What? It wasn't bad_ **, he said. His face looked sincerely confused, and she relaxed a little. Sam always acted like everything Dean said was so crass.

"You'd be interested in a vanished town right?"

Jack came up and sat next to Dean with his own tray, full of about five completely different items. Eileen eyed the fried pickles and instantly shoved a few in her mouth when Jack slid them over to her with a megawatt smile. She hadn't eaten anything at the cafe, and since she was back early, they hadn't gotten her anything. There was no way Dean was sharing any of his garlic and cheese-covered fries.

 **_Where_ ? ** Jack asked. His sign was flawless, and she always understood him fully. Whether or not the general sign was learned or he just knew it because, well, he was God, but he'd at least learned her specific dialect in record time.

 **_Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges_ **, she spelled out with a "frickle" shoved halfway into her mouth so she could use her fingers.

**_The convent in the south of France_ ? **

She nodded and breathed past the slight annoyance that he, of course, knew exactly where she was talking about. While Jack seemed to know everything in terms of facts, he still had a lot to learn about people's subtleties and nuances.

Dean was watching back and forth between them, but there was no comprehension on his face.

Eileen took pity on him and swallowed the bit of fried pickle she'd been savoring. The stinging juice burst on the back of her tongue, and the bite of it gave her shivers. "The town that disappeared is a convent. It sits on the top of a hill in France. Or it did."

He swallowed and gave her a shit-eating grin. She knew the convent part would interest him, or at least give him an excuse to act interested for more information. Despite being married to Castiel, he still insisted on acting like a horn dog. Eileen hadn't seen him honestly look at a woman in years, especially if the angel was anywhere in sight. It was like the entire world was chopped liver when they near each other.

 **_How?_ ** Dean asked.

"How did it disappear, or how did I hear about it?"

He held up two fingers, she guessed to indicate both. Eileen shrugged and popped a few more frickles into her mouth. They were getting cold and losing their crunch. "I don't know how but my friend Marc's sister works at the cathedral there. Or she did."

 **_How have we not heard about this on the news_ ? ** Jack asked.

"That's the weirdest part," she said. Dean leaned in, already hooked. He was easier than Sam with this one. "When Marc called his parents, who live outside of town but close to it, they had no idea who he was talking about. When he mentioned the cathedral and the town, they told him he was crazy. That it wasn't a thing."

She turned toward Sam when he laid a hand on her arm to get her attention. **_So, whatever happened is affecting the area surrounding the town... so there's little suspicion drawn to it_ ? ** Finally, he seemed to be interested, if only formally.

Eileen tapped her nose and then his with a smile.

He tried not to, but a smile eventually broke through, and the wrinkles on his forehead smoothed. **_Let's go discover the lost city of Simiane-la-Rotonde_ . **


	2. Anywhere and Nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean, Sam, Eileen, and Cas wait at an abandoned bus stop for a late-night Uber to pick them. Cas would fly them but three grown adults and all of their international luggage (laden down with magical weapons of all kinds) are too much, even for a full-powered angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for the #TheirLoveWasReal Challenge day two "Liminal Space." This is a bit late! I'm honestly surprised I've written more than one day in a row though. I've had a large stretch of writer's block lately.
> 
> We're raising money and awareness for the Southern Poverty Law Center so be sure to check out our donation drive here: splc.donordrive.com/campaign/theirlovewasreal
> 
> Also, these are only VERY lightly edited. Apologies for any awkward sentences or errors.

It had taken all day to get ready for this hunt. International was new, and they were making it up as they went. Sam dug up all the things that could make entire towns disappear, Cas gathered all the weapons, and Eileen contacted Rowena for spells that could hide said weapons on the trip over. Now they were waiting in an abandoned bus terminal for an Uber driver of all things. Dean couldn't believe there'd even be someone working this late or that they'd come outside the city so far for a fare. 

Dean had helped Cas with the messed-up Tetris game that was fitting magical weapons into luggage. Still, the others had done most of the heavy lifting. Since Sam and Eileen took over teaching the younger hunters everything they knew, he'd taken a back seat to anything hunter-related. The wedding band on his finger made his body feel heavier, but not at all in a wrong way. It was like being piled under dozens of quilts straight out of the dryer. Now, whenever Cas was in danger, his chest tightened, and his thoughts spiraled into a haze of fear. What was worse, he was starting to care about what happened to himself in hairy situations.

He could see the hazy dome of light above Lawrence, and there were a few pinpricks of white or yellow interrupting the dark in every direction. Yet the darkness was thick in this part of the country, and tonight there was no moon to speak of. Sam and Eileen were taking up the only bench that was still intact, heads leaning on each other. He thought they were sleeping at first, but Eileen's lips moved, and Sam occasionally chuckled or spelled out things into her palm.

Since Cas had flown off to see if Bobby could watch the bunker while they were gone, as well as fly him there if he agreed, Dean hadn't stopped scanning a horizon he couldn't see out in the dark. It was both a blessing and a curse to have his full angel powers back. The flying thing was damn convenient, although flying three grown adults and all their weapons weighing down huge suitcases to the airport was outside of his abilities. The curse part came in whenever Cas got into fights; he felt invincible. Dean could see it in the way he threw his whole body at anything. At no point since Cas got all his powers back had Dean seen him block any kind of blow. The Angel used his arms, body, and once even his face to absorb whatever punishment the creature-of-the-week was dealing. Cas tried to hide it by healing himself in the moment, but the blood on his clothes told another tale. 

When Dean dragged Cas from an eternity of nothing, it was only after the Entity screamed that the next time Cas died, it would give the Angel's very essence over to something much older than itself. The words had burned into Dean's gut like he'd been stabbed by a burning-cold ice pick. They'd barely gotten Cas from the Empty a second time; he doubted something older and more powerful than that  _ thing _ would give him up so easily. In Dean's mind, there was nothing that was going to stand between him and Cas spending their lives, and eventually their afterlives, together. If something operating on an entire-universe scale took him away, Dean didn't know what he'd do for the rest of time. The thought was so horrifying Dean often lost his vision and hearing for what seemed like forever while he had to fight the panic back down.

He looked off into the darkness again, willing Cas to appear, but it looked too much like the Empty. Dean's chest constricted. There was a ringing building in his left ear. The only streetlamp over them whined and flickered. A pulse of the darkness, curving outward toward them, once, twice. 

Dean screwed his eyes shut and leaned back against the building. He curled his left hand into a fist until he could feel the bite of his nails in his palm. The warm burst of blood brought him back to the moment, and when his breathing became normal again, he slid down to the crumbling concrete. He leaned his head back against the dusty plaster of the bus terminal. The street lamp was no longer buzzing. It created an oval swathe of dirty light. Against the matte black air it became a lamp that could be anywhere in the world. Dean was sure there were thousands of lamps that looked just like that all over the world, and if he stared at it long enough, he might catch glimpses of those other places overlapping this one. Whenever his eyes framed nothing but the edges of different objects but nothing whole, he was consumed with the knowledge that there were so many other worlds with this exact setup. Perhaps when you looked at a scene just right, you saw each of these worlds layered over one another, and that's what gave it that hard-to-describe feeling. The one you got when walking through an empty airport or moving through a door from a well-lit room to a dark one. 

A rush of wind blew through the dead weeds growing through a crack in the concrete. It was warm and smelled like what the sun felt like on your face. Dean had told Cas that once without knowing Sam was behind him, and now he always looked around before trying to sound poetic. 

Cas was looking down at him with concern creased into his brow. There were so many lines there. Dean appreciated that the Angel was willing to 'age' alongside them. However, he could at least act like his body was giving out on him also.

Dean put his arm out, and Cas helped him up. He opened his mouth but Dean leaned in and kissed him, deeply, before he could speak. The Angel's mouth was so warm; all Dean wanted to do was go back to the house and never stop kissing him. 

When Dean pulled away, Cas asked if he was alright, because of course he did. There were only a few tried and true ways to honestly distract Cas. Even then, it was only for the duration of that activity. 

"We need to talk soon," Dean said before he could stop himself. 

"We are talking." The head tilt almost brought Dean back in for more macking, but the darkness around them sobered him.

"I mean in private." Cas looked to where Sam and Eileen were sitting, far enough away that they probably couldn't hear. He could practically hear the gears in the Angel's mind moving. "When we have more time," Dean clarified.

Cas's forehead creased more, which Dean wasn't sure was possible, but he didn't say anything else. He brought a hand up to Dean's face and put the back of his knuckles against his cheek. It was such a light touch it almost tickled. More than anything that feather-light brush grounded him, and the rest of the panic fled from him. 

One day he'd make Castiel, the Angel to no lord, genuinely understand just how much he was loved.


End file.
